


No Shield Against Nadas

by editoress



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Friendship, Gen, Trespasser DLC
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-23
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-03-15 18:55:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28943301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/editoress/pseuds/editoress
Summary: Adaar's name meant weapon, but at her heart, that was not what she was.A friend finds Solas at the end of the path.
Relationships: Adaar & Solas (Dragon Age)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	No Shield Against Nadas

The eluvian rippled like water and offered as much resistance. Adaar had thrown her weight against it as if it were true glass. She burst through with all the speed she had hoped for; but she had hoped, too, for some little push to keep her on her feet. Instead, she stumbled. Stone struck her boots, and she threw out her right hand. Her left was clutched to her stomach.

For years, the mark had lurked only in her palm, a connection to another world ripped through her flesh. It had hurt, of course; it had often hurt, in the days when rifts had been plentiful. Now the pain crept, unstoppable, up her arm and to her spine, where it made her thoughts dizzy and her legs weak. It felt as though it squeezed her very bones into the Fade, consuming her from the inside. There was not much time left. She could spare no more of her body.

But it wasn’t yet over. When she limped headlong into a statue—no, a qunari made stone, frozen in his charge forward—she kept her feet. There was still sunlight, pouring golden over a landscape as strange and beautiful as any place she had come through so far. The pressure of Cole’s thin hands lingered on her good arm, where he had tried in vain to hold her upright. There was a hush over this place, as if sound had been halted with the stone warriors, and it allowed Dorian’s demand that she return in one piece to remain as the last words she had heard. No, it was not over.

Adaar moved forward. There were more stone remnants of qunari, but she did not lean on them again. They were dead, and it wouldn’t do to dishonor corpses, especially when she was so near to being one herself. Wind whispered, untroubled, through swaying trees. Somewhere, water flowed. She saw living figures atop a hill and moved faster, forcing her feet to catch her step by step. The Viddasala stood tall between Adaar and the slight, unmistakable form of Solas. It was his bearing that always singled him out, still and centered. Adaar saw it for what it was at last: not a sign of wisdom, but evidence that Solas was not mortal. He was not what he had pretended, and as for what he had done….

The Viddasala advanced. There was no time for anything but certainties. Adaar’s name meant  _ weapon _ , but at her heart, that was not what she was.

She ran. It was a pitiful, perilous reenactment of what she was capable of under ordinary circumstances, but it was no less than she could manage. Her left arm was her shield arm. She clutched the straps in her right instead. She splashed into the shallow water between Solas and the Viddasala, turned on her heel, and flung out her shield.

The Viddasala lunged. And then she was stone. There was no moment of transformation, no chance for realization and horror. She was moving, and then she was not.

Adaar’s own momentum toppled her. She caught herself on hand and knees. Her shield clattered against the stones, briefly, and then the thoughtful silence of the place resumed. The sky was blue over the green slopes and abandoned palaces visible for miles around. A massive eluvian perched on the summit of the precipice, but it was silvery and still. Adaar stood slowly, wordless with relief.

Solas was watching her closely. She could not read in his expression what grieved him. “The Iron Bull named you rightly,” he said.

For him to admit any piece of qunlat was rightly done would ordinarily be worth comment, but Adaar was weary and afraid. And she was too pleased with the obvious not to state it, so she noted only, “You’re alive.”

In the next breath, her mark screamed. Green fire wreathed her arm, but she did not feel it, because within, the mark was splitting her marrow. She gripped her left shoulder as if she could hold herself together with the strength of her hand.

As quickly as it had come, the magic drained away. Adaar was left shaken but whole and without pain. Solas’ eyes dimmed from cold lightning-blue to a more familiar hazel. “That should give us more time,” he explained. Sadness twisted the smile he offered. “I suspect you have questions.”

She felt fiercely, then, the pang of missing her friend for two years, in the way her heart leapt at simply seeing him stand before her and invite her to ask questions. And for that fondness, she would not tarry. “You’re Fen’Harel,” she said. “The one they call the Dread Wolf.”

“Well done,” he said, and the praise rang bittersweet for them both. Adaar’s parents hadn’t been able to shake every scrap of qunari culture, and they had brought with them a shame in struggling, in incompetence despite effort. So Adaar had spent most of her life shying away from the subject of magic, embarrassed of her own ignorance. She had learned to smile broadly, shrug, and declare that she was only good for combat. Better to forgo something entirely than be caught out as a novice.

It was Solas who had answered her questions with pleased patience. He was never anything less than accommodating, and she learned quickly not to be wary of her own curiosity around him. For the first time in her life, she had delighted in learning. But not here; not now.

“I was Solas first,” he began. Adaar took some comfort in the truth of his name, at least. “Fen’Harel came later. An insult I wore as a badge of honor. It brought courage to my friends and struck fear into the hearts of my enemies.” He inclined his head. “You must know something of that.”

“I know something of titles you didn’t ask for,” Adaar admitted. “The old gods—the Evanuris—they called you that?”

“Yes. When I defied them, they named me liar.”

“I know,” she realized aloud. The irreconcilable notions of her lost friend and the elven trickster myth were overlapping, converging into a single, replete picture she could begin to understand. “I saw memories on the way here. You were fighting to free your people. Solas, you were a hero, no less than you have been with the Inquisition. More so, even.”

His expression clouded. He returned, “What you saw was a story that remembers me too kindly.” He turned to pace to the edge of the precipice. His slow stride and the angle of his shoulders invited her to follow, and so she did. Standing at his side, she was met with a heavy, sidelong look as he continued, “And you, I fear, are too willing to believe it.”

Staunchly, she said, “You’re a good man. Don’t tell me I’m wrong about that.”

“My friend—!” he murmured, and fell silent for a little while. At last, he passed a hand over his face, and gazing out over the ruins, he said, “I will tell it, then, as it was.

“The Evanuris were no gods, though they would have had my people believe so. The world was different then: we elves were truly immortal, and the Fade was an intrinsic part of our being. Even so, they were no more than mages and slave masters. I sought to free my people from that slavery. Many joined me, and I severed their bonds to the Evanuris.

“It was a long rebellion. And it was not without blood. But at last, the Evanuris went too far, and I formed the Veil to exile them from the physical world.” He closed his eyes briefly. When he opened them again, they were distant and weary. “And so I finally freed my people, forever—by destroying everything.”

Adaar could no more fathom a world without the Veil than a world without water; she had seen only what small pieces of its absence could do. “You made the Veil? The Veil… wasn’t supposed to exist?”

“No!” he said bitterly. “No, it isn’t natural. I tore the world in two to banish the Evanuris.” He gestured at the eluvian she had arrived through. “You have seen the effects for yourself, the marvels I ripped apart. And the elves… they lost  _ everything _ .”

“Then why?” she asked gently.

Solas tilted his head, features tight with pain. “Because every alternative was worse.”

Adaar thought that he meant it, that he wanted her to understand. This weighed heavy on him. For her part, she wanted nothing more than to trust his judgment; but there were unanswered questions yet to dread. “Solas,” she asked slowly, “what was the orb really for?”

His expression flickered. He stood straighter with his head held high to answer. “The plan was for Corypheus to open the orb,” he replied evenly. “The act would kill him. I would take the mark, and with it I would enter the Fade and tear down the Veil. The world of the elves,  _ my _ world, would be restored from its terrible fate. And this world would burn in the chaos.”

Adaar’s breath left her for a long moment. Solas watched her reaction with the same steady gravity she had always known, but there was something ancient and alien in his air; or perhaps that was only Adaar’s own reeling perception. She tried to speak, failed, and guessed in a hoarse voice, “The Inquisition was your attempt to get the orb back. So that… you could see this plan through.”

“Yes.”

She bowed her head and pressed her fist to her forehead, between her horns, suppressing a groan. “You would have used us to destroy our own world.”

“Yes,” he said again, quieter. “Please understand. When I awoke,  _ no one _ had a conscious connection to the Fade. It seemed unthinkable. It was like walking through a world of Tranquil.”

Adaar struggled not to tear apart her good memories in a search for signs that would no longer help her. “When we met, you were so distant. Not cruel, but…” She raised her eyes to his. “I see: you didn’t think we were anything at all.”

“Not at first. But you,” he said earnestly, “showed me that I was wrong.” The brief, fond light faded from his face. “That… does not make this any easier.”

Adaar’s brow furrowed. “Why  _ must  _ it destroy this world?”

He smiled, a little, as if no time had passed, as if she were interrogating him on one of Skyhold’s calmer afternoons and had hit on something clever. “A good question.” He turned away, clasped his hands behind his back, and started slowly toward the looming, still-silent eluvian. “But not one I will answer.” He paused and explained with rueful warmth, “You have always been thoughtful. It would be too easy to tell you too much.”

She strode after him, fervent now that she had seen his reluctance. “There must be another way,” she pressed. “Only let us help you find it.”

He turned to face her, agitated. “This is not for you to solve, my friend! Attend to your Inquisition.”

“The Inquisition has outlived its use too long already,” she said flatly. She hesitated and, more frankly, added, “And… I’m tired of having so much power where I have no right.”

Solas’ bearing softened, and he shook his head wonderingly. “I could have expected as much of you. It is a responsibility to you—a burden.” He looked up at her beseechingly. “Then go live in peace. This burden is mine alone.”

“But you  _ aren’t  _ alone, Solas.”

His brows drew up sorrowfully at that, and he placed a gentle hand on her arm. “Beres-Taar,” he said softly, and she startled to hear Bull’s name for her, “mir falon, put down your shield.”

She would not; it wasn’t in her to even think of stepping aside. “No. Not as long as I could help.” But there was no path of perseverance when death loomed inside her own body. “Not as long as I have the choice,” she amended. “If the Anchor gets worse…”

“I know,” he said solemnly. “I fear we have run out of time.”

Adaar had just enough time to realize what he meant and grow sick with dread before the pain struck. She cried out and dropped to her knees. The magic lashed wildly like lightning. Solas knelt with her. “There was another reason I alerted you of the qunari plot,” he said. “Bringing you here gave me the chance to save you.” Despair shadowed his face. “At least for now.”

She stared at him, wide-eyed, searching for the answer, and saw only a deep well of regret. The elves had a word for such heartsickness over the inevitable; the qunari did not. “You don’t have to do this. I  _ will  _ find another way—I’ll show you—”

“I would treasure the chance to be wrong once again, my friend,” he replied, wistful. He stood and held out his hand. “I am sorry.” Hesitantly, Adaar lifted her deteriorating left hand, and he took it without flinching. With a gesture, he pulled some part of the magic free, and the light of the Anchor changed. “Live well,” he told her quietly, “while time remains.” He released her hand. She could no longer feel the difference. The pain had gone, and the crackling energy had become a constant glow. It grew brighter as he departed, and still she felt nothing.

If he had to leave again, then Adaar would not let him do so with things unsaid. “Solas!” He stopped and turned his head, not meeting her eyes but listening at least. “No matter what comes,” she said, “you are my friend.”

Solas remained there another moment, silent; and then his shoulders fell slightly. He crossed the remaining distance to the great eluvian with weary steps and disappeared through it. The ripples created by his passing shimmered and went still. Adaar’s hand glowed brighter and brighter until there was no substance to it at all, until her shield arm was gone.

**Author's Note:**

> beres-taar: qunlat, "shield"  
> mir falon: elvish, "my friend"


End file.
